Learning how to ride a two wheel bicycle is a very difficult task for young children and beginner cyclists, especially since they lack the necessary coordination and balancing skills associated with said task. The customary approach for achieving bicycling skills is to use a set of training wheels, which is attached to the bicycle's rear wheel assembly, as portrayed in prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,588,788; 6,419,256; 6,318,745; D345,948, and others. However, using training wheels is antiquated and ineffective. One major drawback is that the learner tends to lean on the training wheels for support much like riding a tricycle, creating a dependency for said training wheels, whereby preventing the learner from developing the necessary balancing skills. It could take weeks before the learner is weaned off these training wheel devices, whereby the learner develops balancing and coasting skills more by chance than from their design. Another disadvantage is that since there are many different bicycle models and sizes for the beginner, the manufacturing and stocking of each specific type of training wheel device for said models and sizes can get rather costly.
Alternative methods for learning how to ride a bicycle employ straps (U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,820 and others); seats (U.S. Pat. No. 6,631,948 and others); poles (U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,711 and others), and handles (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,349,958; 5,791,675; 4,917,398 and others). The significant disadvantage of said devices is that a trainer must always be present and running along side the bicycle, while holding onto the training device. Up to now the development of said bicycling skills by the beginning cyclist is again delayed due to the dependency on the support against leaning to the left or right (from an imaginary vertical line) provided by the trainer and the training device. Gyroscopic support devices, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,150 and others, also create a similar dependent conditions for the learner. Additionally, these gyroscopic devices can get very costly to manufacture, to stock and to purchase.
Certain training methods involve the providing of a training scooter which does not have pedals, a crank case, and/or crank arms. A beginning cyclist can learn to balance and coast on these training scooters, but must switch to a different bicycle with pedals to learn balancing and coasting while peddling. The switching to a different bicycle which has a different feel and weight is believed to inhibit the learning process. Additionally, these training scooters do no position the beginning cyclist's legs to approximate the position of the legs when learning to balance and coast while peddling.
While certain novel features of this invention shown and described below are pointed out in the annexed claims, the invention is not intended to be limited to the details specified, since a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art will understand that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention. No feature of the invention is critical or essential unless it is expressly stated as being “critical” or “essential.”